


The Bad Days

by Drapetomania



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek has a mental health day, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Pre-Slash, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 03:06:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drapetomania/pseuds/Drapetomania
Summary: Sometimes the world is too much, my mind's too violentSometimes I'm not okay.(And that's okaywe just have to make it through the bad days)





	The Bad Days

**Author's Note:**

> This is just one experience of a low mental phase, inspired by my own experience. Just to let it out. But also, I believe, Derek harbors so much more pain inside than we could ever see. And he doesn't want anyone to know ever, doesn't want to be weak.
> 
> But it's not a weakness, that he knows how to pick himself up when he's barely alive - be it physically wounded or mentally. We all carry our own mental scars too.
> 
> And it's okay.

  
“Derek?” a voice called, strange and tilted, and the figure ran.

It slowed as Derek lifts his head from his lean on the porch beam, squinting to try and catch any resemblance.

“Derek. What are you doing here?”

Everything was hazy, too unfocused and Derek raised a hand to rub furiously at his eyes, wishing he could manually zoom in to the right distance. But then he didn’t even want to open his eyes at all anymore, because seeing anything was too tiring.

“Where have you-“

Derek leaned back again, the back of his head hitting the wood with a thud. And the sounds came closer – RUSTLE, RUSTLE, RUSRUSRUSRUS – or maybe further. He couldn’t tell.

“Derek.” Suddenly the voice was right in his face, and all around his head and Derek winced. The fog was pushing and shoving and pulling in every which direction, making him feel too numb to even notice the fingers on his chin pulling his head upright until there was considerable pressure.

“Derek, look at me!”

He could feel the panic, shooting at him like a thousand arrows, bolting through his pores and to his chest, just to make the static in him stronger. He just needed it to stop, he needed everything to just stop, wanted to scream and cry.

But he didn’t feel alive enough for it, his body wasn’t his own.

“ ’s fine,” he pushed out through a heavy tongue. “I’m fine.”

When his eyes opened, the world was tinted in grayscale, ashen, burnt like his soul probably.

But it was Stiles in front of him. Derek could tell by the moles, his face close enough for Derek to focus on. Somehow he got his hand to move, to wrap his fingers around the skinny wrist. It took him a few moments, a few sentences of Stiles that flew past him, but he grounded himself enough to nod and breathe and repeat.

“I’m fine.”

Stiles frowned.

Derek shrugged.

Stiles hovered, then slowly let go. Derek’s hand trembled slightly as it drifted back down to his lap. He tried to hold it fast with his second, but even that one was insecure.

“What happened?” Stiles asked, from somewhere beside him now.

All Derek could do was stare helplessly at his lap, staring at his rolled up sweatpants. On one leg they reached just under the knee, on the other to mid shin. It wasn’t right, and yet it was. For this moment. For the mess that Derek was. He’d seen himself in the mirror at some point, whatever time it had been, and whatever time it was now, he was sure he looked just as much in disarray. Hair flat on his head, lifeless, with strands here and there, choosing their own direction awkwardly.

Oh, right. Stiles was there.

“Nothing,” Derek said, his mouth feeling foreign. Like he feature he’d only just grown and never wanted to use again.

“This isn’t nothing,” Stiles stated, probably fidgeting. If there was one thing Derek remembered then that Stiles was the opposite of him. Alive.

But Derek was right. His statement was true. He was nothing.

Derek shook his head, because there was no way to explain. This fog, the static, the… the suffering.

“Is this where you have been for the past 3 days?”

Nod, he could.

And another glance at Stiles to remind himself, Stiles was here. Stiles was here and reason to, at least in this moment, if he’d already survived three days, to keep reminding himself to breathe and breathe in properly, and not run off into the void or sink his claws in a little too deep.

But he was just waiting for the pity, the look of disdain and horror and misunderstanding. The look of …

Something that made Derek not right or not enough.

Stiles stood up and wiggled his fingers in front of his face. “Let’s go inside.”

Derek obliged. He barely felt the grip, but it was the tether that led him forward, step by step, until he saw the couch. Then he slipped away with clear intent, trodding till he could collapse against the cushions. He pulled his feet up and curled, tightening around the wound somewhere deep inside his chest, head pressed into the corner of the armrest.

And Stiles eyed the wrecked, ashen couch, and Derek, with a sadness Derek could do nothing about, nothing but stare, blank faced, with the whisper of sorry sorry sorry, beating against his forehead from the inside.

“It’s okay, big guy.” Stiles’ tone was so tender, it almost drove a whimper from Derek’s sealed throat but it definitely triggered the shaking just as Stiles wrapped him in the blanket, tucking the corners in all around him. Safe.

Then he draped himself on top of him to warm him from the cold hand of life. And finally, finally, Derek could close his eyes again without seeing red, without fangs piercing his lips with an eternal scream, he could close his eyes and breathe.


End file.
